terima kasih buat kalian semua..

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Unnecessary fees charged by schools

I have three schoolgoing children and find that the fees payable for all the three schools are of varying amounts.

The fees payable to my daughter’s primary school and my second son’s secondary school are quite consistent.

However, the fee payable to the primary school where my youngest son is sitting for the UPSR this year is 50% higher than his brother’s, who is sitting for the PMR.

When I called up the school, I was told that this was decided by the PIBG. When I requested for the phone number of the PIBG chairman, they insisted that they were not allowed to reveal the telephone number and any such matter must be handled only by the headmaster himself.

Many parents suffer in silence for fear of victimisation when the matter is brought up. I have spoken to a couple of parents and they are in agreement with me on this matter.

This particular school insists that each year the children buy a new set of T-shirts for their Pendidikan Jasmani and sports day. Almost every year, the children are put into different “houses” with different colours so that there is no choice but to purchase the new sports shirt.

When I did not buy the T-shirt and insisted that my son wear last year’s sports shirt, there was a warning by the headmaster at the assembly regarding boys who did not comply with the school’s regulation on the sports shirt.

Such a practice is not imposed by the other schools and we certainly hope that the Education Ministry can come up with a clear guideline on what is payable so that parents with more than one schoolgoing child are not unnecessarily burdened.